Personal reflection

When I began this semester, I had just recently started working for Weber State University within their archives about three months prior. So, starting this course, I had a few months’ experience with actual archival work. I thought I understood the basics of how archives work.

However, through this course, I have had my eyes opened to many more aspects of archives that I didn’t realize existed. I had a general knowledge of each of the topics that we covered in the class, with more experience and knowledge of few of the topics. But as the course went on, and we studied each area more in-depth, I realized that my few months of experience had only scratched the surface of archival work.

Now, as I sit at the end of the semester, I feel confident in my knowledge and understanding of archival work. I wake up each work day knowing that the work I have been doing is how it should be done, and that I don’t need to constantly ask questions any more to ensure I am making the right choices as I process collections.

I have also come to appreciate more fully, the value of archival work. I had previously been exposed to archives and archival work through my undergraduate work and by working on family history. But I didn’t fully understand how vital archival work is until I started working for an archives. And then I took this course and took my understanding and enjoyment of archival work to a whole new level.

The content of the course didn’t really surprise me. It was more enlightening and broadened my understanding of archival work. What really surprised me was how the course was setup. The best way I can describe this is through an analogy.

The community pool in my home town was designed so that there was a shallow area for toddlers, a deeper area for lap swimming and general enjoyment, and a deep end for diving. All three sections were connected so that you could enter the pool in the shallow end with water that barely covered your toes and then walk/ swim all the way over to the deep end where the diving boards were. But, if you wanted to head straight over to the deep end and dive right in, you could.

This is how I felt the setup of the class was. The modules were straightforward and easy to understand, but they led to deeper content and a deeper knowledge of archival work. At the same time, the modules also provided the opportunity of just diving right in and soaking up all the wonderful archival knowledge.

One area of the class I would love to explore more is that of ethics and the archives. Since I began working at Weber State, I have had the opportunity to witness and be a part of two different situations that caused me to think about the ethics behind them. Both situations are still being figured out. However, my understanding of ethics and archives is still a little bit shaky. It would be nice to do more research on the topic and develop more confidence on the ethics behind archival work so that as future situation develop I will know what to do. This is particularly important to me as I am more in charge of the digital content of the archives. Knowing and understanding the role of ethics in regards to digital content is very important within this role that I hold for the university archives, especially as more and more content being acquired by the archives is digital in nature.

This rise of digital content is, perhaps, the most important change facing the archival profession. Although analog materials are and will continue to be added to archival collections, digital content is the dominant means of record-keeping today. This means that archivists need to develop skills that will allow them to stay up-to-date on the latest technology, and understand how best to preserve the various file formats being created. This to me is by far the most important change facing archivists today.

However, this change also brings with it another important issue; what is the value and importance of analog content in today’s digital world. Throughout this semester, I have read articles and seen discussion posts that address this issue. One article discussed the push from the National Archives that all federal government offices turn toward using only digital content. According to the article, this was partly to assist the archives in saving shelve space.

Another discussion post I read talked about movies that were originally made using film and how to preserve them. This post was especially interesting to me due to the fact it discussed the issue of what is the value of analog content when the technology to use it no longer exists. I personally feel that a digital copy of all analog content should be made in order to ensure the continued survival of the archival materials, but work also needs to be done to ensure that analog content is preserved for its historic value as well as its archival value.

Overall, I really enjoyed all the readings and discussions from this class. I also felt that all the assignments helped me to better understand my role within the archival field and the importance of the archival field within today’s society and culture of digital content and computer technology.